Defective hearing : its curable forms and rational treatment / by James Keene.

  • Keene, James.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Defective hearing : its curable forms and rational treatment / by James Keene. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

    78/100 (page 72)
    When we consider the pathology of this affec- tion, it becomes manifest that treatment cannot be expected to induce absorption of the bony or fibrous tissues which bind the ossicula to each other and to the walls of the tympanic cavity if once these are fully formed. All we can hope to do is to preserve the mobility of the parts before it is too late, and to maintain them in as favourable a position as possible. In order to attain these objects Politzer inflation takes the first place. This should be practised regularly, and in conjunction with it exhaustion of the air in the external meatus is exceedingly useful. In this manner the membrana tympani is drawn outwards and traction is made on the chain of ossicles. Patients frequently express a. sense of immediate relief from the operation, as well as improvement of hearing and cessation of tinnitus. Although this improvement is often transient, unless measures are adopted to main- tain the parts in their altered position, it shows- that the treatment is acting in a right direction^ and affords encouragement to persevere. For the purpose of rarefying the air in the auditory canal I never use anything but Siegle's- pneumatic speculum. With it the amount of traction can be seen through the glass and regulated accordingly. The instrument is cap- able of raising fourteen inches of mercury, or